


Issues with Authority

by Moonsheen



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Backstory, DMC4, Devil May Cry 4 - Freeform, Family Relationships - Freeform, Gen, Missing Scenes, Post-Game, family ties, pre-dmc5, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-28
Updated: 2008-07-28
Packaged: 2019-11-23 05:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18147980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: How do you solve a problem like Nero?





	1. Nuns

**Author's Note:**

> Compilation of my DMC4 stories from 2008. Wow, these are old.

No one was ever sure why Nero set the fire, but no one ever doubted he’d been the one to do it. He swore his innocence, swore to God even, and a number of Saints. He swore it up until they turned the lighter out of his pocket, three eyewitnesses said they’d seen him in the area, and a whole congregation agreed he hadn’t been to services. At that point the evidence was against him, but he knew they would’ve blamed him anyway.

The flames had burned well into the afternoon. Three units worked to stamp it out while a band of knights kept the onlookers back. A couple of fire men suffered from breathing in some smoke and another bruised himself handling a pump. Otherwise, there were no injuries. The flames simmered by that evening, red in the black remains. The storehouse was old and abandoned, and the blaze hadn’t spread. Still, in the old, close quarters of Fortuna’s lower residential district, it could’ve. A lot could have gone wrong. A lot of people could have died.

If Nero had been older, he would have had to face a full tribunal. As it stood he was dragged kicking out of a dumpster and locked in the prefect’s study. The interim captain of the knights, who’d been given the post after losing the elections for Pope and who would never be named Supreme General, met with the mother superior. He had sponsored the child’s entry into the church. She was charged with all oblates, boys and girls, until they reached the age of twelve. The matter fell on them.

“Brother Pax, I have done what I can,” she said, in a cool, clear voice, for she was a patient woman and a devout follower of the Kalinic vows. “I shall do with him as you see fit, but the child is beyond all reproach. He starts fights with the other children and he’s driven five sisters to tears. I’m not one to relinquish one of my lambs but that child…” Her hands tightened to the point of whiteness. Pax had some idea of what she must have thought:

‘There are none who can save that one.’

Pax bowed to her and said: “Mother Domina let this bother you no more.”

He walked out, turned to his young squire, and said: “How about a task?”

When they let Nero out he was issued two hundred Hail Kalinas, fifty strokes across the knuckles, and told to pack his belongings, because he’d be leaving the dormitories the very next day.

To Nero that last part didn’t seem too bad. He’d hated the school, and the nuns, and the other orphans. They couldn’t have thrown him out sooner. The next morning a group of jubilant seniors woke him, caught him, and threw into a large iron tub. They used a prickly brush and soap that made his hair curl. They dressed him in his whites, which belled around his body like a dress and sucked all of the color out of him. They were okay for running up and down the halls at night. It was fun to scare the crap out of anyone in evening prayer, but they’d stopped letting him do that, and now all they were to him were overly fancy and super uncomfortable. After fixing his frock ten times and completely failing to smooth his hair, they marched him out into the courtyard, where a young man waited.

He stood stiffly by the gate. Based in the way the acolytes had started whispering quickly halfway through the Cleansing The Devil Child, he’d probably been made to wait awhile, and had refused to lean up against the wall, even though it was right behind him. He looked like the kind of guy who expected promptness from people. He dressed like it too: the white and gold of Holy Knights, clean and perfectly pressed. His sword hung off his belt. Nero took a moment to stare. He hadn’t seen one up close since he’d been brought to the stupid place, and he could barely remember that anymore. The knights posted outside the school never carried the heavy weaponry, and the sisters caned kids who tried to sneak out the gates. Now Nero stood in the shadow of the bars and in front of one of those knights, and the knight looked down at him.

“You’re Nero?” Two younger boys appeared behind him, looking hot and tired and very much like they’d wanted to sit down, and like they probably required express permission to do so. They were pages, they wore pale blue, and they scurried to take the chests. Nero only took the barest note of them. He looked back up at the knight, tried to look just as tall and immoveable. It was hard, being undersized and lacking the long nose to look down.

…or up, as the case might’ve been. “Am I under arrest?”

“No,” said the knight, crossing his arms behind his back. His dark eyebrows seemed stuck in a permanent, angry slant. His face was smooth, only the barest beginnings of a beard under the firm line of his mouth. Still, he seemed very old. “But you will come with me.”


	2. Credo

“Nero,” said Credo.

“Yeah?”

“What is this?”

Credo lowered the files on hand. He’d been reading them as he’d stepped off the lift. It was a record of the Holy Knight’s expenditures in the last month. Most of it had gone to weapons, supplies, and travel expenses for operatives on mainland assignment. A good portion of those expenditures went to one knight in particular. That knight now stood at the end of the hall, arms crossed, one boot propped up against the wall. He stared into the northern lift, and when his superior approached from the southern lift he looked up and planted that boot back on the floor. It was as close to a salute as he was going to get. He saw Credo. He saw the documents. He saw the seal of the Curia’s financial bureau _on_ those documents and he immediately leaned back up against the wall.

“Look, that squid thing spat _acid_. Had to get myself a new pair of jeans. Otherwise I’d be coming back with no pants. C’mon. Does anyone really want me reporting in with no pants? I mean really?”

“Not that,” said Credo.

“Eh?”

“That.” Credo nodded at the lift.

The young order initiate inside did not see them. In fact, it seemed as though he did not see anything at all. It was one of the recently promoted squires, with oversized robes and the wispy beginnings of a beard. He walked in through the back doors, stopped, turned in a circle, walked out, stopped, and walked back. He did this twice, and as he came in the third time, Credo cleared his throat. There was no response. The squire turned and walked back out.

“Oh,” said Nero, failing to hide a grin. “That. Yeah, he kinda whacked one of those music boxes. Told him not to.”

“How long has he been doing that?”

“About five minutes.”

“And how long have you been standing here?”

“About five minutes.”

Credo _looked_ at him.

“He _was_ being a little bitch.”

Credo sighed and slammed a hand over the brass switch. The squire promptly tripped over his boots and landed face first on the floor. He saw Credo standing over him and immediately scrabbled into an awkward bow. It must’ve been hours for him. His eyes looked a little shot.

“Captain,” he cried, voice hoarse. “That Nero--”

“Gave you direct instruction which you ignored,” said Credo. “You are dismissed. And you,” Nero’s smug look fell away, “will come with me. _Now_ we will discuss your travel budget.”

“Well, hell.”

“And your language, at that.”


	3. The Holy Order

A couple of knights were stationed at the doors to the inner halls. They wore the new armor, clean silver which matched the marble walls and floors. Nero wore an old coat caked with dried blood. He smelled strongly of salt and grog. It’d been a long boat back.

“Credo in?” The knights exchanged looks and nodded. “Great. Saves me the trouble of having to write--”

Nero stared at the crossed lances in his path.

“You’re kidding.”

“Welcome back, Squire Nero,” said the first knight. “You have journeyed far.”

“You’re friggin’ kidding me.”

“Through an outside world rife with toil and sin. Pray, have you sought absolution?”

Sound like twins! thought Nero, nastily. “I thought they closed at eight.”

The lances rattled. “What lies beyond is the Order’s inner sanctum.”

“We cannot allow you entry.”

“No, not while your soul has yet to find relief.”

And the second knight added, almost sheepishly, “It is tradition.”

“Screw tradition!” snapped Nero. It’d been a really long boat ride. “I need. To talk. To Credo.”

The armor remained unmoved. Nero threw up his hands and began to walk away. “Fine.” He lowered his hands. “Fine!” He swung around.

“HEY CREDO. I RETRIEVED THE DEVIL ARM REPORTED IN SICHUAN. B-CLASS, I THINK. I HAD TO SHOOT UP SOME BLOCKS TO GET IT AND ONE OF OUR YANGTZE CONTACTS IS A TOTAL TRAITOR.”

The doors opened from the inside.

Credo looked out “…why are you shouting top secret information at the top of your lungs?”

Nero pointed. “Wouldn’t let me in.”

Credo looked at the guards. “Why didn’t you let him in?”

The guards shuffled awkwardly. Or they tried. It was a little hard to do that in full armor. With wings. “He hasn’t been cleansed of earthly sin.”

Credo looked back at Nero. “And why didn’t you do that first? It’s general protocol.”

“That crap takes hours and I thought you should know.”

“I should know,” agreed Credo, patiently. “But the rest of Fortuna should not. Get inside. I’d like the details.”

Nero couldn’t resist a bit of a skip in his step as he bounded past the guards. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

Credo’s raised hand stopped him. “And you do double what you owe to Our Lord the second you are done.”


	4. Dante

“Ugh.”

“Oh, good! You’re up.”

“Ugh.”

“And I was just thinking the princess would need a kiss.”

“Fuck you.”

The lights came back on. Or at least his eyes did. Nero stared up at a grey-blue sky. Dawn must’ve broken some time while he was out. A second later, that sky was completely eclipsed by a good deal of stubble and the stink of…

“Cologne? Seriously?”

“Adds to the image, kid.”

“You don’t say.” Nero shoved Dante’s face out of the way. They were still up on the parapet, which was something. Those goons and the mutant crows were gone, which was also something. He also had a horrible headache, which was just ass.

Nero squeezed the bridge of his nose. He blinked. Something hard and squashed came away in his hand. A bullet, caked in dried blood.

“You’re kind of slow,” said Dante, leaned casually over the neck of one of the gargoyles. It looked he’d been doing that for awhile. He’d sure had time to figure out the right pose. “Usually takes me about, I dunno, a minute to come back from one of those? Tops? I guess you gotta ease into it.”

“They…shot me?”

“Yup. In the head.”

“They shot me.”

“Just the summoned legions don’t cut it any more I guess.”

“What the hell!” Nero stumbled to his feet. The world swam; a white fog filled his vision. It passed, but the throbbing sure didn’t, and Dante gripped his arm. “I don’t get shot! I’d be dead! What the fucking hell! I’ll shoot them back!”

“Easy,” said Dante, setting him back down.

Nero accepted this only grudgingly, shoving his arm off. Dante had weird ideas about personal space, and Nero didn’t really want to know too much more about them. “Easy for you to say.”

“What? Never happened before?”

“You know what?” Well, at least the skin around his forehead didn’t feel too broken up. Unless they’d got him from behind. He couldn’t really remember. He felt behind his head. Oh, there was a bump but he was also pretty sure that was just part of his skull. “Not so much.”


End file.
